Progression Feedback with Russ Kiniry.

[Nature Boy]

Russ Kiniry has a thread on the EA Sports website asking for some direct feedback for NCAA Football 10 starting with Progression. Check out the link if you would like to join in the conversation.

Link to the thread.

[FirstTimer]

It's interesting that it appears EA is going away from posting directly at "community sites" (OS, NCAA Strategies, VSN ,etc...)

My take on this is they think they can: (1) "control the message" better (i.e. they get criticism they don't like simply erase the post) and (2) the posters at the EA site are less sim/hardcore and typically fall into the fanboy category.

Bingo. This is where Madden and NCAA both fell off the map in recent years. Honestly, IMO the emergence of the online gaming community has killed any chance we will see of a great sim product from either NCAA or Madden

[FirstTimer]

I think Madden Nation killed any chance of us ever getting a true sim game. The popularity of that style of game play is clearly not going to go away.

I think NCAA 10 lost a lot of sales b/c they tried to cater to the sim crowd after 09 was all speed/cheese. Basically all the cheeserz absolutely hated the game and the sim people still pick the game to death.

If you read the responses over there for the most part they are decent.

Agreed. About two years ago on Madden Mania I compared the player ratings of Madden 2002 and Madden 2007(both for PS2). I went through each team, each position, for each game and compared the type of rating you saw from an overall perspective. Then compared the sim stats you saw from a season. The results were more than telling of that EA has done.

Madden 2002's average overall player was usually about 7-10 points below Madden 2007's. Way fewer 80 and 90+ overall rated guys in Madden 2002. Way more rated in the 70's and upper 60's. The sim stats in Madden 2002 were amazingly spot on and very accurate. What did this show? Well in 2002 online gaming wasn't huge yet so the devs could concentrate on the meat and potatoes of franchise mode like the sim stats etc. The lower player ratings gave a great sim experience.

As online grew more popular people began bitching about "How is Player X only a 79??OMGZER! I can't cheese with him if he's only a 79!!!" EA started inflating the ratings for the online community and that threw the entire sim engine out of whack IMO. As Madden has gone along less and less time has been dedicated to franchise mode so you still see the same problems over the years, bad Fracnhise draft, FA, logic. Fucked up sim stats, etc. I mean as great as Madden 2002 was for a sim in some ways it still had franchise AI problems. That was 2002. It's Madden 2010 on the next gen systems and we are still getting the same problems? Pathetic.

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

Agreed. About two years ago on Madden Mania I compared the player ratings of Madden 2002 and Madden 2007(both for PS2). I went through each team, each position, for each game and compared the type of rating you saw from an overall perspective. Then compared the sim stats you saw from a season. The results were more than telling of that EA has done.

Madden 2002's average overall player was usually about 7-10 points below Madden 2007's. Way fewer 80 and 90+ overall rated guys in Madden 2002. Way more rated in the 70's and upper 60's. The sim stats in Madden 2002 were amazingly spot on and very accurate. What did this show? Well in 2002 online gaming wasn't huge yet so the devs could concentrate on the meat and potatoes of franchise mode like the sim stats etc. The lower player ratings gave a great sim experience.

As online grew more popular people began bitching about "How is Player X only a 79??OMGZER! I can't cheese with him if he's only a 79!!!" EA started inflating the ratings for the online community and that threw the entire sim engine out of whack IMO. As Madden has gone along less and less time has been dedicated to franchise mode so you still see the same problems over the years, bad Fracnhise draft, FA, logic. Fucked up sim stats, etc. I mean as great as Madden 2002 was for a sim in some ways it still had franchise AI problems. That was 2002. It's Madden 2010 on the next gen systems and we are still getting the same problems? Pathetic.

Not a more spot on post about the subject matter out there.

This is so incredibly true, its sickening that simply going back to the future would help the franchise mode that much more.

[Sven Draconian]

Does it really matter? That team is incompetent.

They don't even realize the biggest issue with their game is the player AI. Not even a fucking clue. I've tried writing novels on the damn subject, but they don't feel like listening. So whatever, I give up.

Madden and NCAA are going to BLOW until they program the players to actually do an assignment. Until the OL actually has rules on who they are going to block. Until the linebackers understand how to cover a zone and until they get some form of gap responsibility int he game, it's going to be worthless.

It just takes time (and, since we've been doing it for 7 years now, a lot less than it used to) to figure out how to abuse the AI. Am I not supposed to throw to the flats because you can't teach a defender how to cover it? Shoulld I not blitz because you haven't figured out how to make the lineman pick it up.

No, we'll just speed up the game and give the QB super human ability instead.